THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

whereby people and goods came into, out of or passed through the
Tamaphok Yakha locale. Mu1 baTo were frequenly no bigger than normal
paths, and when they forked, as they quite often did, local knowledge
was required to be able to follow them successfully, This local
knowledge reflected one's connection to and identification with
Tamaphok.
However, houses, paths and dhgr6 were hardly major features if one
looked at the landscape in purely physical terms. Apart from such
'cultural' features and a few isolated pockets of forest to be described
below, the landscape between the forests and gorges of the Maya Khola
and the forests wreathing the Tinjure Danda ridge was totally dominated
by the staircase of bgri and kheT terraces (as Plate 34 shows). The
main feature distinguishing kheT and bgri from ghar-bBri was their
function as the source of staple crops. KheT and b6ri were also the
scene of predominantly group as opposed to individual activities.
The main kheT crop was rice. The first job in the rice planting
year was to plant the rice seed in seedbed fields. These were generally
above the rest of the fields to be planted, so that, when the time came,
the bundles of seedlings could be thrown down to the people working
below. As rice planting time approached, the dry kheT fields were
ploughed a first time, after which hoes were used to scrape (tachnu) the
vertical walls (kgn16) of the terraces bare of plant life (Plate 2 3),
Then the lower, raised edges of the terraces (m) were levelled off,
and a slight trough dug round the inside edge of the field. The fields
could be flooded before or after tachnu-ing, although it was easier if
they were flooded after. This usually took place in May, June or July
(depending on altitude!, Small openings would be cut in the to